Currently, the broadband access technologies are mainly classified into copper wire access technologies (for example, various digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies) and optical access technologies. An access network implemented by the optical access technologies is referred to as an optical access network (OAN).
A passive optical network (PON) technology is a technology for implementing the OAN. The PON technology is an optical access technology for point-to-multipoint transmission. A system architecture of the PON is shown in FIG. 1.
In FIG. 1, NMS is a network management system, ACS is an automatic configuration server, SNMP is a simple network management protocol, and TR069 is a customer premises equipment wide area network management protocol. An optical line terminal (OLT) is configured to provide a network side interface for the OAN and is connected to one or more optical distribution networks (ODNs). The ODN is a passive optical splitter, and transmits downlink data of the OLT to each optical network unit (ONU) through a splitter, and similarly transmits uplink data of the ONU to the OLT through convergence. The ONU provides a user side interface for the OAN and meanwhile is connected to the ODN. The ONU is referred to as an ONT, if the ONU further provides a user port function, for example, provides an Ethernet user port or a plain old telephone service (POTS) user port. The ONU and the ONT are collectively referred to as ONT herein, if no special description is made.
An ONU management and control interface (OMCI) is a configuration transmission channel defined by the gigabit passive optical network (GPON) standard. The OMCI channel is established between the OLT and the ONT. After being activated, the ONT establishes the OMCI channel between the ONT and the OLT. The OMCI is a master-slave management protocol, in which the OLT is master equipment, the ONT is slave equipment, and the OLT controls a plurality of ONTs connected thereto through the OMCI channels.
The OMCI protocol abstracts various data about ONTs under management of the OLT into a protocol-independent management information base (MIB) with managed entities (MEs) as the basic information units. According to various types of configurations for the ONTs, the OMCI defines that the OLT controls each ME of the ONTs. The ONT implements the configuration management function of each ME under the control of the OLT.
In the PON network, a plurality of management methods is available for the ONTs, for example, a simple OMCI mode and an OMCI+TR069 management method. In actual applications, under the same PON port, an OLT and ONTs are probably produced by different manufacturers, and all the ONTs are probably produced by different manufacturers as well. Therefore, as for a certain service type required by different ONTs, the OLT may adopt different management methods for managing the ONTs depending upon specific situations.
A plurality of management methods is available for a certain specific service when the manufacturer manufactures and produces an ONT, and management methods actually supported by ONTs from different manufacturers are not completely the same. However, in actual applications, a certain service of an equipment can only select one management method according to different demands of operators. In a current GPON network, ONTs from different manufacturers may exist under the same PON port, and management methods of the ONTs for different service configurations are not completely the same. Moreover, a plurality of management methods is available for a certain specific service (for example, the VoIP service may select an OMCI mode for management or select an OMCI+TR069 mode for configuration management). As a result, in the case that ONTs from different manufactures are configured under the same PON port, the OLT cannot figure out the management methods supported by the ONTs in advance, and thus cannot predetermine the management method specifically configured for a certain service of each ONT, and each ONT also cannot notify the OLT about the management method that is adopted to manage a certain service in advance. Thus, it brings a lot of troubles to the configuration and management of the ONTs carried out by the OLT, which severely influences the configuration management efficiency and is disadvantageous for the OLT to configure and manage the ONTs.